Nonvolatile memory in fluid dispense cartridges, such as ink jet printers, is typically very small to keep manufacturing costs down, particularly if the cartridges are disposable. Re-writable nonvolatile memory is more expensive than one-time programmable memory. Because of these constraints, conventional fluid dispense cartridges provide only a course indication of fluid remaining in the cartridges due to a small number of fluid levels encoded in the limited nonvolatile memory of the cartridge. When a fluid dispense cartridge is moved from one digital dispense device to another, it carries only this very coarse fluid level information with it. The fluid dispense device must make an assumption about where the actual fluid level is between the coarse levels that are reported by the nonvolatile memory in the cartridge.
In applications such as automated sample preparation and analysis in the medical field, this is unacceptable because accurate information regarding fluid drop count, fluid volume, fluid type, fluid expiration date, fluid droplet error codes, initial fluid cartridge installation date, and the like is important. The fluid used in a digital dispense device must be precisely controlled when depositing the fluid on glass slides or in wells of well plates for various analytical purposes, such as in medical analysis laboratories. What is needed, therefore, is a way to more precisely keep track of fluid information in fluid dispense cartridge as the cartridge moves from one digital dispense device to another on a network of digital dispense devices.